


Scare Tactics

by Scrunyuns



Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: M/M, OC POV, a tiny bit of sexual content, but nothing too graphic, clucky Numbers, wrenchers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunyuns/pseuds/Scrunyuns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrench and Numbers run into some unexpected trouble during one of their hits, and they have to make a very difficult decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scare Tactics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ithinkwehitametaphor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithinkwehitametaphor/gifts).



Mike wasn't supposed to be at home today. It's a school day, after all, but a hellish fever had struck him just before the weekend and it still has him in its clammy grip.

He's in bed carrying out the doctor's orders ("Plenty of rest, young man") when he hears some commotion coming from downstairs. Was that his father yelling? _Dad's always yelling about something,_ he thinks. _He's probably on the phone._

Then there's a loud thump, and the sound of something breaking. He shoots up like spring.

_There's someone else in the house._

Mike tries not to make a sound as he pulls on a pair of pajama bottoms and grabs his baseball bat. He turns the knob softly, and the door slides open with a whisper.

The soles of his feet are clammy and sticking to the floorboards as he makes his way down the hall. The stairs are usually creaky, but he's lighter on his feet than his heavy-set father and the stairs only creak a tiny bit under his weight. He forgets to skip the step that creaks the most, though, the sixth one down. He winces at the noise. _Hopefully the intruder is hard of hearing._

When he finally makes it downstairs and rounds the corner, he finds the door to the office wide open. He is greeted with a chilling sight: his father's body lying prostrate on the floor, head swathed in gladwrap. A stranger is kneeling by the body, wrapping it in a plastic sheet.

The man is dressed in a ridiculous fringed jacket, but he's built like a goddamn house. Mike sweats even more now, his palms slipping on the sleek handle of his baseball bat. _If only I can get close enough to take a swing at this guy..._ But before he even gets to swing it, he feels the bat slipping out of his fingers.

And then, nothing.

\---

He comes to in what he assumes must be the backseat of a car, because he seems to be moving. His head hurts like nobody's business; he'd been ambushed, and with his own weapon, at that.

Mike lies stock-still, and can see a little bit through the threadbare fibres of the blanket he's covered in; the ginger giant is driving the car, and in the passenger seat sits another man.

He's not tall, not short. Bearded. Swarthy. He looks like mafia. _What the hell was Dad mixed up in anyway?_ It would certainly explain a lot. His dad never talked business with him.

Mafia Guy's hands are gesticulating wildly. _Is this some kind of mobster code speak?_ Mike wonders. _God, those Italians are crafty. Or are they Russian? Maybe Russian, that guy looks kind of Russian. Italians are always clean-shaven aren't they?_ He isn't sure which possibility is more terrifying. He knows that the Italians drown their victims, but what do the Russians do? Maybe he's lucky he doesn't know.

As Mafia Guy's arms keep flailing about, it eventually dawns on Mike that they're just deaf. _Deaf! Well that explains why they didn't hear the stairs creaking._ He is somewhat relieved; if they're deaf, they can't hear him escaping. And make no mistake - he _will_ escape.

_They didn't even bother tying me up, the idiots._

Cowboy Giant was ignoring his partner, so now Mafia Guy has stopped trying to hand-talk. _What had he been saying anyway?_ Mike suddenly regrets not signing up for that extra-curricular ASL class last year. That could really have come in handy right about now.

He's pretty sure they had been arguing about something, because judging by Mafia Guy's body language he seems kind of stressed out. His leg keeps bouncing up and down, and he's biting his nails. Mike might not be an ASL expert, but he knows body language well enough. _I wonder if they were arguing about me..._

Cowboy Giant takes a right onto a rest stop by the side of the vast, deserted road, parks the car behind an outhouse, and gets out of the car. Mike finally gets a good look at his face; it looks younger than he'd expected. Softer, somehow.

Mafia Guy sits there for a bit, looking confused, before he gets out and joins his partner. Mike's gaze follows them from under the blanket.

'What?' the dark-haired man seems to say with his arms outstreched, palms bared and shoulders raised.

Cowboy Giant starts chopping at the air with his massive hands, and once again Mike curses himself for turning down that class.

"When will I ever need that?" he'd laughed. _So fucking stupid._

The argument is certainly getting heated now, Mafia Guy slamming his fist on the hood of the car every time the big guy signs something. Cowboy Giant, for his part, looks like he's going to blow a fuse. They're all up in each other's faces, looking like they might start butting heads. But in stead the big guy grabs his partner's collar and... _kisses_ him?

 _Ho-ly fuck._ Mike has seen dudes kissing maybe a handful of times. It usually doesn't bother him as much it bothers other boys his age, but the severity of his situation makes this exchange seem obscene, almost sick.

They're groping each other now, the big guy pushing the other guy backwards onto the hood of the car. He undoes his partner's pants and sticks his hand right in there. Mike closes his eyes real tight as the car starts to rock softly.

"Dear God," he whispers, his hands clasped in prayer even though he's supposed to be an atheist. "Please tell me this isn't some kind of fucked up sex thing. Please just let it be a normal kidnapping, please please please please..."

It's only when the two men get back in the car that Mike dares to open his eyes. They're quiet, not even talking with their hands anymore. Not driving, either. Just kind of sitting there, stewing. He can only get a good look at Mafia Guy's face. He looks pretty sheepish, his meticulously styled hair now all mussed up, brow furrowed in deep thought. A few times he looks like he's about to say something, but he always seems to change his mind.

 _This might be the perfect time to wiggle out of the car,_ Mike thinks, _while these two psychos are distracted._ He reaches out, slowly, slowly... But when the car door clicks open, Mafia Guy's head whips back.

"Hey!" he shouts, pulling out his gun.

 _Fuck. So I guess they're not_ both _deaf, then._

\---

Mike used to love going on a frozen lake in winter, playing hockey and horsing around with his friends. But here, on _this_ frozen lake, kneeling next to his father's corpse with his hands tied behind his back, blood-soaked hair sticking to his face, he is shitting himself. He's wearing nothing but pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, and it's freezing cold out here. _At least they had the courtesy to bundle me up in the blanket._

The big man drills a hole with a monstrous device that must weigh at least two hundred pounds. They're not going icefishing, that's for damn sure.

"Look, kid," Mafia Guy starts, sounding to Mike's surprise and relief neither Russian nor Italian. "It's nothing personal. Your dad here was into some shady dealings, and he pissed off our friends. That's all. And we didn't count on him having a kid at home. Don't you have school today?"

"I'm sick."

"Of course you are," Mafia Guy sighs, rubbing the bridge of his long, hooked nose. "Of all the fucking days..."

Mike swallows, tries not to look over at the body of his father lying sprawled out on the ice, as if he'd just fallen over while skating. He feels sick.

"How old are you anyway?"

"S-sixt-t-teen," Mike answers, teeth clattering. "I'll be s-seventeen next month."

"Sixteen. Fuck... you know, when I got into this I swore I'd never hurt a child."

"So... so you're n-not g-g-gonna do like, wuh-weird sex stuff with m-me?"

Mafia Guy frowns.

"What?"

"Like, weird g-gay serial k-k-killer sex stuff?"

The man's face contorts into a disgusted grimace.

"No! _God_ , no! Jesus Christ, kid, what the fuck gave you that id- oh. Ohhh. Shit, were you awake for that?"

Mike nods gravely, making his kidnapper cringe.

"Aw fuck," Mafia Guy groans, running a hand through his hair. "Uh, well I'm sorry you had to see that mess. We wanted to keep you in the trunk with your dad, you know, but your dad is kinda... huge. Actually, we thought you were dead after I'd knocked you out. I thought I'd hit you too hard... not that I meant to, of course..."

As he rambles on, Cowboy Giant just keeps on drilling the hole. Mike shivers. Mafia Guy notices this and begrudgingly takes off his fur coat, drapes it across the teenager's weedy shoulders. This killer is strangely friendly - and that just makes him all the more terrifying. But not as terrifying as that massive hulk of a man drilling an icy grave.

"Look," Mafia Guy says when he notices Mike staring in the general direction of the giant. "My partner, he uh... our relationship is- you know what, nevermind. It's got nothing to do with you. We're just here to dump your dad in this frozen lake, alright?"

At that, Mike finally breaks and starts bawling.

"Shh! Shush!" Mafia Guy hisses as he covers Mike's mouth with a gloved hand. "Goddammit, if you don't stop crying like a little shit right now, so help me God, I will put you in that hole with your dad - _alive_. Understood?"

Mike nods, his lip still quivering as the kidnapper lets go of his face.

"Good. Now, I said we never do kids. And I want to stand by that. But, the thing is, now you know where we're dumping your dad. And you've seen my face, my partner's face. You've seen our car, our clothes. You've seen our operation. And you probably know who we work for."

"I- I don't... my dad n-never talked to me about b-buh-business."

"Well that's all good and well, but that still leaves what you've seen."

"I won't tell anyone, I promise!"

"Oh, how I wish I could believe that," Mafia Guy sighs and turns to his partner, who has now finished drilling.

They talk in their secret language for a long time, often gesturing towards Mike and making a sign that he assumes means 'eyes' or 'see', or something like that. The big man draws his index finger across his throat a few times, and you don't need to be an expert to know what that means. Mike contemplates making a run for it again, but with his ankles and wrists tied like this it would be less like running and more like shuffling on his belly over the ice like a penguin.

The kidnappers keep quarreling. For a second, Mike's afraid that they might start dry humping each other in front of him again.

"Alright, _alright_ ," the smaller of the two finally says. "Goddamn, you're a stubborn fuck."

Mike swallows a sob.

"So we've reached a compromise, of sorts," Mafia Guy tells him as they walk over. "Basically, he wants to kill you. Now, I don't want that. I don't kill kids. That's not in my job description, and it's above my paygrade. My partner here insists that you're not that young, but that's all subjective. As for me, I just don't want you to be able to do a police sketch, pick us out of a line-up, or point us out in a photograph. That sorta thing."

"I won't. I mean, I wouldn't."

"Like I said, kid, I wish I could believe that," Mafia Guy sighs as he pulls out a switchblade. "But I'm afraid I'm just gonna have to take your eyes."

"N-no, no no no..." Mike stammers, violently shaking his head.

"Calm down, snotty. That's just if I win the coin toss."

"Coin t-t-toss..?"

Mafia Guy rummages through his pants pocket and pulls out a quarter.

"Heads, I win and you keep your head - but I take your eyes." He flips the coin in his hand. "Tails, my partner wins. Which means you die. Simple."

"Oh my god..."

"God's got nothing to do with this, kid," the man says as he sends the coin flying.

\---

_Do you think we did the right thing?_

_Fuck no, I don't think we did the right thing! Now you gotta shave off that glorious beard of yours and I've gotta wear a fake moustache. And we have to wear stupid clothes. And wigs._ Wigs _, Numbers! Do you want to have an itchy scalp for the rest of your life?_

_You're overreacting._

_Am I? It's that, or we'll have to run away to Cuba. Have you ever been to Cuba? They sure as shit won't have Scrunyuns there, I can tell you that._

_Well, at least it's warm. Look, he's not gonna snitch. He knows we can find him. He knows what we're capable of._

_What_ I'm _capable of, you mean? You're not capable of shit, apparently. Should've at least taken his eyes, like you said._

_You know that was just a scare tactic. It would've been worse than killing him. And it would've drawn too much attention. We go back to Fargo now, we can lay low and let the knuckleheads at the local police station screw up this missing persons case like they always do._

_Well, I'm glad one of us is optimistic, at least._

_Look, even if the kid snitches, and even if the pigs did have five braincells between them they wouldn't have the faintest idea where to look. But if a kid shows up with no eyes? Now that's a national media frenzy right there. Every guy and his grandma would be looking for a big deaf guy and a strikingly handsome Jew. We'd be flushed out in no time. It's better this way._

_I can't believe you're trying to justify this. Fargo is gonna have our asses._

_We'll be fine. And if Fargo didn't want any fuck ups, intel would have done their fucking job properly, am I right?_

_I don't like killing innocent people any more than you do, but if it's gotta be done it's gotta be done. No loose ends, isn't that what you always say?_

_I might have said that on occasion. It's different with kids, though._

_Are you going clucky on me?_

_No, I just don't think it's the kid's fault that his dad happens to be a dirty motherfucker._

_Well it_ is _his fault that he tried to knock me out with a baseball bat. I think you've gone soft in your old age._

_Yeah, maybe._

_But you're hard where it counts._

_Damn straight._

_You know you gotta bottom forever now though, right?_

_You know what, I think I can live with that._


End file.
